2026 Electoral Act elicits righteous indignation by politicians
The season of politics is here and the maneuvering and horse-trading are in top gear. The INEC has released timetable for the political activities including the 2027 general elections; and
- By Nnaji Jekwu Onovo
The season of politics is here and the maneuvering and horse-trading are in top gear. The INEC has released timetable for the political activities including the 2027 general elections; and the political class are working hard to cope with the schedules and avoid pitfalls. The highlight of the political activities at this period is the passing and signing into law, the 2026 Electoral act. The build up to the passing of the Electoral Act by the National assembly was filled with drama including protests by the opposition politicians and some members of the Civil Society Organisation. The crux of the matter is the mode of collating election results, as some people demand Real-Time Electronic transfer of the results from the polling units to the IREV, while others insist electronic transfer should be optional, subject to availability of internet service. At the National Assembly, members of the House of Representative favoured Real-Time Electronic transfer, while majority of the Senators endorsed electronic and manual collation, citing issue of poor internet connections at some areas of the country. At the joint meeting of the committee of the two chambers, they approved both electronic and manual collation. The President assented to the passed Bill immediately.
When the signed Bill was made public, another issue caught the eye of the politicians on both sides of the aisle--- Direct mode of primary or consensus for selection of candidates for general elections. It was observed that the Act omitted the politicians preferred option, Indirect (delegate) mode of primary. The two contentious clauses elicited righteous indignation by politicians, prompting the major opposition parties to address world press conference and called for fresh amendment.
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Barely one week after the Presidential assent to the 2026 Electoral Act, indications emerged that governors of the ruling APC are not comfortable with the removal of the indirect mode of primary election from the new law.
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Section 84 of the Electoral Act, 2026, prescribes only the direct and consensus mode of primary elections by political parties. However, section 84(2) of Electoral Act, 2022, had provided that, “The procedure for the nomination of candidates by political parties for the various elective positions shall be by direct, indirect primaries or consensus.” The indirect primaries system, also called delegate system has been largely controlled by state governors who determine the delegate for such exercise. The governors are frustrated that they are not likely to nominate candidates for the National and State Assembly elections.
It is not yet uhuru for the potential National and State Assembly candidates and their supporters, as the governors could find ways to manipulate the direct primaries. In Nigeria since the return to democracy, state governors have come to determine who gets what and when, even at the federal level. State governors under the umbrella of governors' forum have dominated our polity at all levels. The desire of the governors to dominate our polity at all levels seems clearly to be selfish and self-centred. In one of the previous constitution review exercises, state governors got the state houses of assembly to vote down the move to grant financial autonomy to the state legislature in spite of the benefits the move would have portended for our democracy. The governors seem ready to stop any move that does not serve their purpose no matter how laudable. They determine solely in their states, who becomes council helmsmen, councillors and all. So, we must be cautious in celebrating the direct mode of primary election.
Leaders of the major opposition political parties in Nigeria rejected the Amended Electoral Act 2026, signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the National Chairman of the New Nigeria People's Party, NNPP, Alhaji Ajuji Ahmed, said leaders of Nigeria's major opposition political parties have a shared aspiration to save democracy and Nigeria from impending failure and collapse. Giving some of the reasons for the rejection, Ahmed said the introduction of the proviso in Section 60(3), which allows wide and undefined discretionary powers to the presiding officer, overrides and negates the purpose of introducing electronic transmission of election results from polling units. “This negation is unambiguously intended to provide a blank cheque to those who seek to manipulate election results by delaying the electronic transmission of results from the polling units to the IREV on the pretext of network failure. The opposition parties said the no-network argument is “fraudulent and is merely part of the APC game-plan to rig the election in 2027.
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Real-Time electronic transfer of election results is a good option, if and only if, other variables including electricity and internet connectivity are functioning satisfactorily across the country. The proponents of the adoption of technology and real-time electronic transfer of election results believe the technologies will make it possible to rapidly “leapfrog” to cleaner and more credible elections. The agitation for the use of these technologies has been driven by the fetishization of technology rather than by rigorous assessment of their effectiveness; that they may create significant opportunities for corruption that (among other things) vitiate their potential impact. Going by their pontification, you get this almost blind faith that technology will make everything better, even though it can be extremely difficult to introduce. However, it is clear that the introduction of new technology cannot fully safeguard an election because some irregularities – such as the intimidation of voters, and vote buying – cannot be prevented by digitization.
The potential for technology to be manipulated – or to simply break down – is rarely publicly admitted by those who seek to promote its use. Yet stories along these lines are easy to find if you look for them. Technology requires many other forms of human input, code has to be written for programmes; servers have to be protected; and, digital registers have to be maintained, cleaned, and kept secure. The weight of these logistical challenges means that things can and often do go wrong. For example, biometric registration or verification devices may not arrive in time, power cuts or insufficient battery life may stop them from working, and so on.
Opposition parties should not place most of their eggs in the technology basket. If digital election technology is treated as a silver bullet, opposition parties may become complacent about the threat of rigging and pay less attention to other forms of detecting and deterring manipulation.
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